A question mark (?) comes at the end of an interrogative
sentence. Aren’t question marks lovely and curvaceous?
Never, ever use question marks with
indirect questions. (And never, ever put quotation
marks around indirect questions.)
• Izzy demanded to know why Parker looked
so guilty.
• Who stole Dani’s jellies is the question.
These rules apply even when the indirect question consists
of only one word. If you like, you can italicize one-word indirect
questions.
• Someone had done it. The question plaguing
everyone was who.
When writing a direct question in another sentence,
use a comma before the question and a question mark after it. Note
that quotation marks are not required; neither
is a capital letter at the beginning of the question.
• Sometimes I wonder, do squirrels find
all the nuts they bury?
• If someone says, what kind of accent
do you have? one more time, I’m going
to explode.
